Rewards and penalties for recycling packaging

The municipal government of Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong province, has issued a plan for the implementation of the local garbage sorting regulation, which sets the target for the recycling rate of daily garbage to be at least 40 percent by 2020. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Among the garbage that needs recycling, packaging materials account for a large proportion, as the large number of delivery orders produce huge quantities of packaging waste.

With the rapid development of e-commerce, the scale of online shopping in China has grown rapidly. According to data released by the State Post Bureau, the total volume of express deliveries nationwide last year totaled 40.06 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 28 percent. The express delivery industry consumed 19.2 billion packaging boxes, 5.8 billion braided bags, 15 billion plastic bags, as well as 30 billion meters of tape last year.

As the express delivery business extends from the city to the countryside, the consumption of express packaging materials will continue to increase, and the resulting packaging waste and environmental pollution problems demand attention.

Several online shopping platforms and express delivery companies have already been trying to recycle the packages. For example, last March, the delivery company SF Express set up a packaging laboratory for the research and development of recyclable packaging materials, while Cainiao has pioneered the use of recycling cardboard boxes in 10 metropolises and big cities.

However, these measures have failed to solve the problem because they do not provide any reward to those who recycle packaging materials. Enterprises that recycle the boxes have to bear additional business costs, which makes the mode unsustainable.

It is time for the legislature to perform its role by encouraging the recycling of packaging materials and letting those who do not recycle share the costs. For example, in certain states in the United States, an enterprise with high recycling rate can get exemptions from corporates taxes, and in Germany the producers of materials must pay professional recycling companies if they cannot recycle their produced materials. In China, the national regulation on express deliveries that came into effect this May encourages enterprises to recycle their materials and minimize their packaging, but it does not specify any rewards or punishments. The regulation needs strengthening to encourage the recycling of packaging materials.